Criminal justice?
By Scott Shore
web posted February 16, 2004
I never knew Carlie Brucia or her family. This sixth grade girl
from Sarasota, Florida was brutally murdered after being
kidnapped on her way back home from a party with her
schoolmates last week. Carlie is now known nationally. I know
little about this young girl but her senseless death represents an
unimaginable tragedy to her parents and family and a sense of
loss to nameless millions who were able to witness her abduction
through the tape of a car repair company's parking lot camera.
This tape has been shown endlessly on national TV. We know
little about her murderer, a 37 year old man with three daughters
of his own, Joseph Smith.
Here's what we do know: Joseph Smith has been convicted on
over a dozen felony charges. He was acquitted of an attempt to
commit a similar crime within the last decade but has been guilty
of a number of drug and assault related crimes within the last few
years. As late as last December, Joseph Smith was found to be
in violation of parole terms and might have been imprisoned. The
face of Joseph Smith, a white man, a mechanic, aged 37,
married with three children is the face of evil itself. What in the
name of everything that is sacred was this man doing free on the
streets? This is as clear a case as I can think of in which our
criminal justice system is in fact a justice system that is itself
criminal.
What civilized society allows these predators to skulk about our
streets? I do not give one whit about whatever private demons
may have possessed Joseph Smith. I do not care about his
mother or father, his childhood or his disappointments in life. By
his brutal behavior he has forfeited any sympathies that decent
humans can feel for him. He is a man outside the law and outside
the very fellowship of humanity itself. What excuse can the courts
and the justice system give to the family of Carlie that explains
why this man was in a position to murder their child and then
dump her young body near a church parking lot to rot like
carrion in the elements? This is clearly a case in which judges and
parole officers are complicit in the crime. Should the State of
Florida be considered criminally negligent in the most basic of all
responsibilities of government which is to protect the life of its
citizens? Perhaps victims should have recourse to file for criminal
negligence against the State and its agents?
Joseph Smith is only outstanding in that he is so prosaic and
banal a figure. He is a man of no distinction. Like the myriads of
evil men, he is a nobody, a bland meaningless person than is not
noticed in the crowd. Butchers of humanity are seldom great
figures but only anonymous phantom-people. They permit the
killing fields of Cambodia, the massacres of Serbs, Bosnians and
Albanians, the massacre of Armenians or the faceless soldiers at
Auschwitz. By his soul existing in the form of a human body, the
very image of God, this man has desecrated his entire self and is
in fact beneath the existence of the lowest animals. The fact that
he is made of the material components of fire, air, water and
earth means that part of God's world itself is imprisoned. There
can be no greater redemption for this man or the world than his
return to ashes and the elements so he no longer mocks
Creation.
There is something more unsettling and disturbing about the
murder of Carlie Brucia by this no-man Joseph Smith. How
many other acts of evil and perversity do not make national
television? In any given day how many senseless murders or
assaults on the personhood of innocent people take place? The
very ordinariness surrounding the crime speaks to its likely
omnipresence. There is even something more troubling. Over
thirty Russians riding the subway in Moscow were murdered by
a Chechen terrorist. That means over thirty entire worlds were
destroyed. We shall never know the mothers, fathers, sisters,
brothers or friends in these cases. We shall never know the
shattered lives left in the aftermath of that event. After 9/11 we
shall never really know the unfolding story and pain of the
families of the victims. We shall never know the suffering of the
families of busloads of Israelis blown up by random violence. A
question haunts our souls, "How can a merciful God permit this?"
We can not go there and we must stand silent in the face of this
question. These are not questions mortals can answer. We can
only take responsibility for what is in our hands.
Certainly those who take innocent human life have lost the
opportunity to expect any forgiveness except from the Almighty.
It is our job to deliver strict judgment without mercy. It says in
the Talmud, "Those who are merciful to the cruel shall be cruel to
the merciful." The Bible rebukes King Saul of Israel for failing to
kill Agag, the King of the Amalekites as well as all destroying the
entire Amalekite people!! For this reason, Saul loses the right to
kingship to Israel. One might wonder why this moment of
compassion is held against Saul. We learn later that one of the
descendents of Agag is the infamous Haman found in the Book
of Esther. Haman plotted to precede Hitler by over two
thousand years. It is said by the mystics that all the great evil
leaders have the soul of the Biblical Amalek. This is the same
people that we are told had no fear of God and sought to
annihilate the Israelites after the Exodus from Egypt before God
could reveal Himself on Mount Sinai. The bottom line is that Evil
is real and does exist. We may not know why it is permitted but
we know that we have a holy obligation to fight such evil. We
must do our job and let God do His.
How have I wandered so far from the murder of a young girl that
I don't know to matters of Biblical proportion? Because to the
family of Carlie this IS a matter of Biblical proportion and the
same is true for anyone who can sympathize with millions of
victims of evil. Along with my prayers of comfort for the family of
Carlie, I pray for strict justice not only for the aptly no-man
named Smith but for justice to those who showed mercy for the
cruel and for all those who stood by while this Evil existed. In the
Bible there is the concept of a "rodef" which means a person
who means to do evil. It commands us to stop this person before
he commits his treacherous deeds.
When Joseph Smith is found guilty of kidnapping and murder (as
I am sure he will), I do not want to hear from those who would
save his life. Death by execution is the law in the State of Florida.
It is probably too compassionate to fit this crime. Yet the death
of this man is a celebration of Humanity! The fact that O.J.
Simpson walks free is a decree against our nation. The blood of
his wife screams from the soil. When it comes to all the Joseph
Smiths of the world, it is our job to rid them from our midst. It is
only the Almighty who mysteriously permits such creatures to
exist who can judge them beyond human understanding. In the
meantime, let us think of the soul of Carlie, her family and friends
and those of all the victims of these monsters in our midst.
Scott Shore is an educator and political columnist who lives in
Providence, RI.
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